Hello, I'm looking for a simple mod that eliminates the farm demand cap. Best I can figure the way to go about it would be to create a new lot that simply adds space to the demand cap. No such mod seems to exist, but I am willing to make one; but I need to know how to do this. Since it's a single variable I want changed, I am hoping that this will be easy to do.

Either SPAM or CAM 2.0 should be ideal for making farming a more viable option in your regions.

There are some lots that just add to the cap, such as Sim Goobers irrigation canals. But the first two total change the way farming works in game, so would be more ideal IMO.

I've not looked at the latter, but the former increases the amount of jobs farms produce, which is counter to what I'm trying to do. In fact, I'd love to cut the jobs farms produce to about 25% of what they produce now.

Reducing the number of jobs would required editing the values of every lot, so that's a lot of effort.

Can I ask why it is you want more farms with less jobs? Wouldn't simply having less farms mean less farming jobs?

It's also important to know, the CAP on farms is due to the simulation. Maxis envisioned you'd only use farming to get the region going. When it does, you are supposed to update it all to other Industrial types, thus the cap can be reached without a single farm in your city. Once education hits a certain level, that's when you can no longer grow farms. Equally when your economy is developed, you'll have no demand either.

That's why SPAM or CAM are really the way to go here. SPAM changes the way farms work, so they are always a viable industry. CAM does similar things, but doesn't mess with the lots, so the capacities shouldn't have changed, just the mechanisms behind them.

Reducing the number of jobs would required editing the values of every lot, so that's a lot of effort.

Can I ask why it is you want more farms with less jobs? Wouldn't simply having less farms mean less farming jobs?

It's also important to know, the CAP on farms is due to the simulation. Maxis envisioned you'd only use farming to get the region going. When it does, you are supposed to update it all to other Industrial types, thus the cap can be reached without a single farm in your city. Once education hits a certain level, that's when you can no longer grow farms. Equally when your economy is developed, you'll have no demand either.

That's why SPAM or CAM are really the way to go here. SPAM changes the way farms work, so they are always a viable industry. CAM does similar things, but doesn't mess with the lots, so the capacities shouldn't have changed, just the mechanisms behind them.

hum. Thank you, I will look in to this.My objective is to do what you say, use farming to get the region going, but my definition of "get the region going" is "cover every flat tile with a farm on a region that could fit 300 small city tiles"

Reducing the number of jobs would required editing the values of every lot, so that's a lot of effort.

After some more testing, this is pretty well where I'm at. I need to do this, but don't know how. None of the lot editors I have found seem to be able to edit these sort of things.

In sum, I need to do the following things

1 - Create an item (IE a lot) that increases the farm cap by an insane amount, 100,000 lets say2 - Create an item that causes a huge amount of farm demand (lets say, 90,000) so that all farms grow nearly instantly, even on the largest tile, filled, wall to wall with farms.3 - Edit every farm lot, every building and field if needed, to cut the number of jobs created.

I'm willing to put in the time and effort, and, share the results with the community (as a mod uploaded to the LEX) but still need to be pointed to the tool to use to do such editing.

Well editing such properties requires the use of a tool like iLives Reader or SC4 Tool (what I'd use). As for how,

But I caution you, just simply editing them to give a ratio of one farm = one house is going to cause you problems. Because you see demand is a three tier thing that's all very inter connected. Before continuing I suggest you read up on the information here and here.

Why is it you want so many farms before you do anything else? It's like opening SC4 and deciding to build a skyscraper-filled metropolis, you can't simply force that to happen. To get there, you must slowly build up from villages, to towns, to cities. So that the buildings that develop are all working together in harmony. As such, why not build one city at a time, get things going and then extend this further into the region?

If you can elaborate on exactly what it is you are trying to accomplish in-game, that makes it a lot easier to advise you on how to make that happen. But I wouldn't assume just because you want the game to work a given way, that SC4 will co-operate. As will all games, it's essence is a system of logic-based code, it's not based on anything but maths. If you usurp the predicted inputs, expect the output to be unexpected, i.e. it probably won't work how you envision it to.

Easier method would be to Install CAM Rural for the demand boost to start. Yes, you will have to have some residential to keep boosting the demand and some commercial to balance those that won't work the fields, but this will take care of your Demand CAP and other Farm growth problems. Be sure to have a neighbor connection since IR Demand CAP relief is included in the industrial connections under CAM. Also, plop the Census Repository Vault for a pretty big initial boost to IR CAP.

Next, some lot work and exemplar work. Edit the Farm buildings to not use Farm fields. Create a lot with eye candy fields instead that are the size you want them to be. Be sure to stage them at stage 1 with such low employment numbers and add the farm building to the proper place on the lot. The LEX has a ton of farm fields you can use to do this. You will have to edit them as props though. Again, very time consuming but a lot easier than trying to force the game mechanics to utilize only IR.

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Well editing such properties requires the use of a tool like iLives Reader or SC4 Tool (what I'd use). As for how,

But I caution you, just simply editing them to give a ratio of one farm = one house is going to cause you problems. Because you see demand is a three tier thing that's all very inter connected. Before continuing I suggest you read up on the information here and here.

Why is it you want so many farms before you do anything else? It's like opening SC4 and deciding to build a skyscraper-filled metropolis, you can't simply force that to happen. To get there, you must slowly build up from villages, to towns, to cities. So that the buildings that develop are all working together in harmony. As such, why not build one city at a time, get things going and then extend this further into the region?

If you can elaborate on exactly what it is you are trying to accomplish in-game, that makes it a lot easier to advise you on how to make that happen. But I wouldn't assume just because you want the game to work a given way, that SC4 will co-operate. As will all games, it's essence is a system of logic-based code, it's not based on anything but maths. If you usurp the predicted inputs, expect the output to be unexpected, i.e. it probably won't work how you envision it to.

What you describe is essentially what I am trying to do, the problem is that farm demand is too "slow".

As you say, low level lots have few people. Once I get going I can build 3 residential lots for every farm, but in the beginning, sometimes I need as many as 6. What I'm trying to do is to get more farms to build themselves so that I do not need to shove so many residential lots in the area.

My objective is to simulate the proper relationship that towns have with their rural areas. That is, people drive in to town for work, and people who live in town, do not drive out to farms for work. The town itself has more jobs than people. I don't actually need infinite farm demand, this simply would help in doing this.

I do tend to go one city at a time, but one problem I have is the amount of time it takes to fill out a city, especially when you get most of the way done, you start to hit the cap.

My desire is to build a region that effectively develops itself. Towns will grow where I need to place houses to get the farms to grow, and so on. The problem is that due to the fact that starting demand is so low, I am unable to do this and need to do it backwards, that is, I need a town already built for the first few farms to even grow.

Ideally I could take a huge city that is flat (I despise using these, but just an example) and of the 200 or so farms I can fit into that city, about 30 would develop without any difficulty. This would then guide me into where to place my towns. As it stands, I'm lucky if I get 3.

One thing that I think I need to do in order to get this to work is divide each "naturally sized" farm into 4 farms. This will allow me to actually have 1 house per farm, and, get the natural rural unemployment that I want to drive people to drive in to town for work. The only thing that irritates me about this is the size comparisons. Where I'm from (Southern Ontario, in Canada) farms can average about 5 times as wide and 10 times as long as the "natural size" in game, which I will only be making worse by dividing things in 4. However, I may just need to live with it, as, this seems to possibly be the only way to achieve what I want - In addition, it is more realistic given that most farms do either front or 'side' on to a road, very few real farms in this area 'back' on to a road.

I will look into the things you've said in greater detail, as well as CAM Rural.

I think one of my key problems is I get bored with just zoning farms for hours and try to build a small town, and when I start to place education buildings, the entire region goes to hell very quickly.

EDITED TO ADD:If you want to see the areas I'm using as exemplars in the real world, google maps Tiny Ontario, in particular, Concession Road 13. I use this road frequently to visit family about a 15 min drive away.

What you describe is essentially what I am trying to do, the problem is that farm demand is too "slow". [...]

As you say, low level lots have few people. Once I get going I can build 3 residential lots for every farm, but in the beginning, sometimes I need as many as 6. What I'm trying to do is to get more farms to build themselves so that I do not need to shove so many residential lots in the area.[...]

The problem is that due to the fact that starting demand is so low, I am unable to do this and need to do it backwards, that is, I need a town already built for the first few farms to even grow.

Yeah I struggled with the same issue and found that XX Turbo mod helps in getting the first farms of the ground without any residents, and generally does a good job growing farms in cities with few residents.

What you describe is essentially what I am trying to do, the problem is that farm demand is too "slow". [...]

As you say, low level lots have few people. Once I get going I can build 3 residential lots for every farm, but in the beginning, sometimes I need as many as 6. What I'm trying to do is to get more farms to build themselves so that I do not need to shove so many residential lots in the area.[...]

The problem is that due to the fact that starting demand is so low, I am unable to do this and need to do it backwards, that is, I need a town already built for the first few farms to even grow.

Yeah I struggled with the same issue and found that XX Turbo mod helps in getting the first farms of the ground without any residents, and generally does a good job growing farms in cities with few residents.

Thank you, I will try this next.

I just tried CAM Rural and omg no. It increased the IR jobs tenfold. However, installation was difficult and I might have totally screwed something up.

Next, some lot work and exemplar work. Edit the Farm buildings to not use Farm fields. Create a lot with eye candy fields instead that are the size you want them to be. Be sure to stage them at stage 1 with such low employment numbers and add the farm building to the proper place on the lot. The LEX has a ton of farm fields you can use to do this. You will have to edit them as props though. Again, very time consuming but a lot easier than trying to force the game mechanics to utilize only IR.

Okay I missed this. How exactly would this work? CAM sounds very interesting and I'd love to use it, but would editing the jobs for every field to 0 work (since it does not work in the non-modded version as they are already at 0) It sounds like you are suggesting placing farms like puzzle pieces? Is there a way to get CAM to work while leaving IR alone? The defaults may work for me after all.